Category Archives: Movies

Everything seemed right about it. I could very well relate to it. Not that I had experienced it myself, but everything seemed so right and so much in place. I was happy and carried a smile as I came out of the theatre watching the Hindi movie Dev D.

As per legends, creative ideas mostly generate when one is parked on a pot-e!! 😉 The disclaimer to this movie stated that it was “loosely” inspired by the story of Saratchandra’s DevDas!! It was indeed and must say very well adapted to the current era. To Anurag Kashyap – the writer/director, I must say – an idea well thought and executed.

Those who haven’t watched it, stop reading right here unless you don’t mind getting to know a gist about the storyboard. Rest can read, and agree. Disagree as well…after-all a democratic country we are in! 😀

How many of you call you dad by his pet-name…forget first name, but pet name???? Our hero, Dev does. 😀
He gets slapped.
Fine humor is blended in such a serious situation too. Dev asks his dad “why you slapping me…tell me that…for smoking a cigarette or for calling you by your pet-name?”
He is sent to England for higher studies as an acknowledgement to his query! (I wonder if my dad would have sent me too, if I had called him by his pet-name! ;))!

The young Parvinder alias Paro loves Dev, her father’s employer’s son…a love, which is never acknowledged.
But times have changed. Paro doesn’t cry over Dev’s departure to London. She keeps in touch with him through mails, phone and chats.
She doesn’t even think twice over his request of a picture of hers…wearing nothing.

*Note* The director here missed a trick. He forgot that digital pics (The camera she uses, didnt seem analogous to me) could be uploaded and directly sent via e-mail. Instead he makes the heroine, click – develop – scan and send the picture.

Paro keeps asking “Kab aaoge Dev? (when you coming, Dev?)” only to get no solid answer.
On seeing her picture, “Main aaraha hoon Paro (I’m coming Paro)” he calls her up to convey. This may sound utterly butterly vulgar and pervert-ish…but it’s handled well in the movie, and actually makes the audience laugh out loud.

Dev is a hypocrite character, who acts out more than he thinks. He loves Paro, knows Paro loves him but is unable to admit it all out. He goes out with women, but is unable to bear a lie that a stranger of a man says about his liaison with Paro. Sloshed by the innumerable pegs and chain smoking, he puts it across to Paro that she’s not worth to be his wife.
Paro ends up marrying a rich widower with 2 kids and moves to Delhi. The “Emosional Athyachaar” song sets the right mood at this very moment in the story!

Years ago, there was an MMS scandal related to a girl who was a student in DPS (Delhi Public School). The very story forms the backdrop of Lene alias Chandramukhi alias Chanda, the third angle in the movie. Unlike the Delhi gal whose family moved abroad in real life, Lene’s family fails to deal with all that occurred. Her father commits suicide, mom abandons her and she’s left to feed herself. Being beautiful and open-minded, no wonder she’s drawn into the world of commercial sex trade under the acquaintance of a pimp, Chunnilal.
But these are the times when multitasking is the name of the game. So Lene, who is now known by the name of Chanda…goes to college like any other gal of her age during the daytime, and at the end of the day, gets back to business!

Dev, in search of Paro lands in Delhi…and is devastated to find her happy in her new household. He takes more strongly to alcohol than ever before, taking cartons of booze each night to his hotel room. He finally lands in the lap of Chanda, thanks to Chunni.
His straightforward talks, his love for Paro – makes Chanda fall in love with Dev. But Dev, can love none being the way he is.
A high moment in the movie is when Dev asks Chanda, as to how Lene became Chanda. Chanda explains, “No TV channel showed my MMS, no newspaper carried my picture…everyone downloaded the MMS and watched it…they enjoyed it and then called me a slut.” How true.

The story is then about how Dev gets involved in a BMW rundown case (plot taken from a real incident); how he loses his dad, his only ATM; how he fails to understand his failure; how he comes over Paro and booze and lets both of them go; and how he finally gets to be with Chanda.
The Dev of this modern day version doesn’t give up due to circumstances and die. This Dev is open to face life as it comes.

The music is awesome. 18 tracks throughout the movie…the best being “Emosional Athyachaar” and “Mahi Mennu”…also loved “Nayan tarse” and “Saali khushi”!! 😀
The actors – Abhay Deol as Dev, Mahi Gill as Paro, Kalki Koechlin as Chanda and Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Chunnilal – have done awesome justice to the characters they have portrayed! 🙂
I also wonder how the censorship board was so kind to this movie when it comes to dialogues. Times have indeed changed.

Times of India gave it a rating of 5/5, so shall I! 🙂

PS: On the way back home, the traffic police inspector stopped and asked me to blow on his face to check if I had consumed alcohol. Co-incidence? 😛 I must confess, its disgusting to blow on someone’s face. I wish they are provided with an alcohol detecting instrument. Amen! 🙂

I am never gonna forgive myself for what I did this weekend.
I am never gonna do something just cos its at my disposal and for free.
Hence, I am never gonna write such a post again. Mind it!

Now that I have given enough build up already, let me tell you that this weekend – I watched a Hindi movie “Desh Drohi” – and I am now wondering what came over me, as I watched it completely.
This is not a review of that movie, its not even worth of a few kilobytes of server space. 😀

The movie has a story which I can put it in one simple line. Here I go – It talks about a son who comes to Mumbai to become a Police Inspector, to realize his grandpa’s dream as well as to prove his dad wrong but ends up being part of the underworld mafia with “North-Indians in Maharashtra feud” being the central theme.
I wonder why Raj Thackeray didn’t sue them for using his creative idea.
The “hero” of the movie, Mr. Kamal Rashid Khan (KRK – someone called him the next SRK – I can’t better such a PJ :P) is a class altogether.
Every time he delivers a dialogue, he stands in attention – May be to get the attention of the theatre audien…errr…owners.
And his facial expression while uttering earth shattering dialogues is very calm and poised – Our newsreaders overact in this case! 😉
Let me not talk about his dance and romance – SRK, you better watch out…cos…K…K…K….KRK is here! 😛

About KRK – the more I wanna say, the more good things seem to come to mind.
But I loved the confidence with which he announced – “I will act only in movies produced by me”! – I hope the other producers in Bollywood didn’t lose much sleep over this.

Lack of work, can make people do crazy things. Just like the lack of it made watch this movie, the lack of opportunities helped KRK get heroines for his patriotic flick! Apart from this I see no reason why Gracy Singh (of Munnabhai MBBS fame) and Hrishita Bhatt (of Asoka fame) should be grabbing such an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with both hands.
The two heroines are very different. I guess KRK wanted variety. 😉
While Gracy can be seen driving motorbikes and ass-kicking villains all the time, Hrishita can barely ride a bicycle and is very senti-emotional if you know what I mean.
What is common between the two? Well, their good taste in choosing their life mate in our one and only KRK! 😀

And to beat it all, 6-7 songs all through the movie and each song is well timed, fits perfectly into the “storyline”!

And the best part about KRK? Well…he’s inspiration and motivation personified. I had this feeling that I can never act, but this guy…ah…he made me realize that acting is not always about acting and expressions, its not always about delivering dialogues the way humans do. It made me realize that I have lost on many years of fame and name (and shame???)!!!

Anyways…
If you cannot bear to see someone smiling…
If you cannot stop smiling, laughing, giggling…
If you feel like crying, but cannot…
If someone who’s had a heartbreak but can’t vent out the feelings…

There’s only one solution…
Gift them/yourself a DVD of this Atyachaaric Achaar (Troublesome Pickle)! KRK will make them K…K…K….Kry!!! Sigh! 😀

It was a last minute decision on this one. Yes, the movie had not created that much anticipation as the book had done. Last evening, I went out to watch “Hello” with my roommate. And since I had not liked Chetan Bhagat’s “One Night @ Call Centre” as a book that much, I went without any expectations to the theatre. I didn’t know the show timings at this local theatre called Melody (can’t expect to get tickets at multiplexes like Sathyam Cinemas and Inox here in Chennai at the last moment, Mayajaal yes is sometimes a last minute option though) but I had this vague idea that the evening show would start at 6:45pm if not at 6:30pm. And we reached the theatre 5 minutes before the movie actually started playing at 6:45pm. Tickets were easy to get…we didnt get the balcony ones, but managed to get the ‘circle’ ones for 50 bucks…and there were hardly 50 ppl there while there was space for close to 250 ppl there…80% of the theatre was empty. Phew!

Ah! The movie started rolling with the credits to begin with….and, OMG…the credits took a good 10 mins to get over….At the end of the credits, the movie seemed to have been produced by 5 production houses, sponsored by umpteen number of brands and an entire reel completely wasted on this…sheesh…

Unlike in the book, where the story is narrated in a train and the dude is an author…Dude’s a super-star here and the narration takes place in a star-hotel lounge. Before he lands in the lounge, Salman would have repeated for the Nth time, a performance on stage where he ends up losing his shirt and standing half-Adam!! Yes, 40+ uncles these days are under pressure to build up ABS thanks to 40+ aunties following 40+ movie stars with ripped shirts and six-packers…sigh!

The 6 characters are sketched pretty well…Shyam, Priyanka, Varun (Vroom), Esha, Radhika and Military Uncle…all seem to live upto their characterisation in the book.
The only thing I had disliked in the book, and so also in the movie was its unrealistic touch of ‘GOD’ calling up on Shyam’s cell phone…and talking on the speaker to all 6 characters making them realize about their conscience within…SO UNREAL!!

And seriously speaking…there should be some limitations…I agree the call center guys are paid well compared to a domestic help, but that doesn’t mean that these movie-guys should project the call center employees to live life king size…I mean, the way the houses of these characters are etched in the movie, the way they are dressed, their make-up, et al is very much out of place. The American accent, which is a very essential part of the call center environment hasn’t been much concentrated on. Gul Panag who plays Priyanka, agreed is ex-Miss India or something but to be blunt, she’s got fat all over and with her low neck dresses (yeah…to office…no dress code and only condom machines there) she looked like err…duh! very un-corporate…!! 😀
Suresh Menon plays the systems guy (who in the book, works to solve the ‘static’ problem) is wasted thoroughly…he acts more like a clown…even compares Rajnikanth to GOD for that matter. 😀
Songs were pathetic…none are hummable…one where Salman rips off his shirt, the lyrics go “Bang Bang, Boom Boom”…heights!! 😛

I am actually more enthusiatic about the movie to come – “3 Idiots” – based on Chetan’s first novel “Five Point Someone”…waiting for it…And it has Aamir Khan as Hari too….yahooooo…waitin….tick tock tick tock… 😀

And ya, for this Hello movie…I would say, a must watch for a Chetan Bhagat fan else treat it as a MISSED CALL 😉 Well…my rating is 2/5. One point lost on the songs, one for the extravagant sets and costumes and one for cashing in on GOD!! 😉

It was early at 10am that I got up to the alarm and headed towards home. Today being a day off due to a festival (Ganesh Chaturthi) here in India, I had dozed off last night at my friend’s place in all spirits!! Chennai is facing power cuts these days…scheduled ones…and in my area its 9am to 10:30am as per the schedule. I called up my dad who celebrates his birthday today, wished him and spoke to him on a lot of things like his plans for the day, who wished him before me, who’ll visit him, whom will he touch base with, et al…and reached my home past 10:30am just avoiding the damn power cuts. I had plans to watch Farhan Akthar’s “Rock On” this noon at Sathyam Cinemas, my favorite multiplex in Chennai. So on reaching home, read the newspapers, updated all masala into the mind, got ready and headed to the multiplex…to be joined by friends (yeah not alone this time! 😀 ) just on time!! 🙂

Now to the movie…

Man…I have no words for the movie…do not dare to miss it…

It begins with my favourite song “Socha Hai”….and the story to a certain extent is about what had happened in the past…yeah 50%+ is in flashbacks…but well shot…it juggles between the present and the past…Its about 4 friends who had formed a rock band “Magik” (yeah Magic with a ‘K’…what else with a Kapoor behind the movie!! :P) in their earlier years which went on to be famous but never made it…hmmm…

Farhan Akthar (Adithya), Arjun Rampal (Joe), Luke Kenny (Rob) and Purab Kohli (Killer Drummer – KD) form the rock band and even go on to win a contract for their first music album after winning the V-Channel sponsored talent hunt. But politics, right-outta-books-ethics and real-life-attitudes make sure that they never make it to where they would have reached if they had been allowed to record what they were best at, rock music. They get disintegrated….loose touch…10 yrs pass by…

10 yrs can change a lot of things around…so it does with these 4 musicians….

Adithya, the vocalist…is now an investment banker…married to Sakshi (Prachi Desai) who is unaware of his previous rock-star image…is running in the rat race…living what he thinks is life…to be only made to realize his folly and reunite with his band by his now pregnant wife. Brilliant acting by Farhan…the rock-star image suits best on him, but he doesn’t fit the bill as an investment banker!! 🙂

Joe, the short-tempered lead guitarist…is now without a steady job….still plays guitar at small parties and get-togethers…married to his sweetheart played by Shahana Goswami (Deeksha I guess Debbie was her character’s name)…has an eight year old son…is more of a follower than a leader….emotional. Arjun has acted well, but looks artificial in some scenes…and among the 4, he has the gals drooling allover the most!! 😛

Rob, the long-haired keyboard player…is now a technician cum player who works for/with Anu Malik (of all ppl)…is single…loosing hair…and sick! Luke has decently portrayed his part…nothing artificial about it! 🙂

KD, the killer drummer…now works for his dad in his jewellary business…loves to flirt and listen to live bands…single ready to mingle…owns a jeep….hasn’t touched the drum sticks for 10 yrs…is the jester in the movie! Purab has enacted his role which is very close to his own self, but sometimes he’s overacted…seems like he’s inspired by the role of Sameer played by Saif Ali Khan in Dil Chahta Hey (DCH). But he keeps the humor quotient up and running!! 😀

10 yrs hence…they get back together, thanks to Sakshi…and the rest of the story is all about how they give their last concert together as the rock band “Magik”!! 😀

Kudos to both the female leads….Prachi and Shahana…they have portrayed their roles to the hilt…loved the facial expressions on Shahana especially!! 🙂
Kudos to the director Abhishek Kapoor….for maintaining the Rock-concert feeling throughout the rock-concert shots!! 😀
About the music….kudos to the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio…loved all the songs….favorites being “Socha hai”, “Rock on”, “Pichle saath dinon mein”, “Ye tumhari meri baatein”…in that order…and the other songs too!! 😀

A must watch is all I can say….and as displayed on the 70mm screen “Do not download the music…buy the CD”!! 😀

Once out of the multiplex, the next pit stop was the Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) near the Bessy Beach…Not facing the beach we thought was disappointing…but once inside, there were disappointments all over…we ordered…the items were served at our table…AC was on, but where we sat it was close to an expresso in terms of warmth…and before I could order another coffee (have this habit of not stopping at one mug), the dude handed over the bill…but that didnt stop me…hehe…ordered for a black coffee…parked ourselves for another half hour till we were asked “any more orders sir?” which actually meant “if nothing else you need, pls be on your way out”!! 😈

We then headed to our next favorite haunt….Bessy Beach….2-3 hours we sat…at one place….and what we talked on deserves a fresh new post altogether! Moreover, this already seems to have become a long post! 😉

Now who doesn’t know Sathyam Cinemas? If you are a Chennaiite or even if you have visited Chennai once so far in your lifetime, you would no doubt have heard and definitely have watched a movie or two over there. Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai is the most happening Movie complex in Chennai, closely followed by Inox Movies and Mayajaal. I have no idea if there are any other movie complexes in this lovely south Indian city that celebrated its birthday (368th is it?? I think so!! 🙂 ) just this week that went by.

Now I have no complaints about the way movies are screened at Sathyam Cinemas…nor am I gonna bang my head concerning over the rocket high prices of popcorns (they are good, and ask for some ‘extra butter’ to be added…yummmy deliciiouusss!! 😛 ) sold over the counters there.

But the concerns that I have is again (like last time) related to booking and this time its regarding the online booking portal. Earlier the payment gate was well within the Sathyam portal, but of recent they have started directing the payment through some secure channel…I have especially had terrible experiences the last 2 times that I have bought my tickets online. As I log in, select the movie of my choice, choose the seating location, reject the food-at-my-seat option…it leads me to the 3rd party secure payment gate and thats when all the problems have been. The last time I booked 2 tickets for 200 bucks, the seats were booked and monetary transaction was successful (as it got debited on my credit card statement) but it failed to take me back to the Sathyam Cinemas portal and hence I ended up without the booking-number…which is essential to collect tickets later…nor did it appear in my ticket booking history column on the portal…The same thing happened when I booked the tickets for 4 – 320 bucks – the time before. 😦

Asked the bank guys, they said that the money has been credited to Sathyam and Sathyam guys say that I have not booked any tickets as my booking is not reflected in their portal…What can I do, but Sigh! 😦

I don’t know if any of you have faced this problem…but this has made me not to use the Sathyam portal, and as a result watching movies on big screen at Sathyams has stopped since 2 weeks now…am missing it, no doubt…booking tickets is tough as I stay at a distance and mainly the timings don’t suit for me to rush in for a newly released movie…

So I’ve headed to Inox Movies and Mayajaal to watch movies of recent…but its not the same…Inox is a small place…and it being on the top floor of the Citi Center Mall, does not have that appeal of a complete movie complex…while Mayajaal being on the ECR (East Coast Road) is way too out of the city and travelling late nights is a pain with the cops and cons treating you alike if caught!! Moreover, I miss the Sathyam popcorns at these two complexes…hmmm…

Hope the Sathyam guys do something about this…esle I have no other go, but to watch movies at INOX and Mayajaal. Not that good an idea, if you ask me even in sleep.

Yeah…finally I did get to see Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (JTYJN) at this Sunday matinee. I just got 3 words to say “I loved it”!! 😀
This can be (but should not be) taken as a review…or (and) can simply be considered as a write-up about something I had been impatiently waiting to watch since over a fortnight. Initially it was a struggle to get the tickets and then it was the excitement of the last minute wait…and finally it was pleasure of reaching the theatre half an hour prior to the start and again impatiently waiting for a friend to arrive (inspite of his informing that he would be there in 5 minutes time, it seemed eternity). So finally at 2:45 pm, the five of us were inside the theatre loaded with popcorns, fountain coke, puffs and something-the-name-of-which-I-forgot 😛 and were cracking pathetic jokes (all out of uncontrollable excitement I guess) just to push time till 3pm, the show-time!! 🙂
And suddenly we fell silent as the credits were being shown and then it was just magic. 😉
Aditi (Genelia) and Jai (Imraan) were introduced in a manner what could be called as a “cliched” loss of a dear Radha!! One of my senti friend almost started to sob (initially she did warn about her sensitivity meter, but didn’t guess it would be this sensitive) but laughed out loud when she got to know that Radha was after-all a cat…the PETA ppl could take this as an opportunity to sue her for laughing loud over at a cat’s death. 😛
Then suddenly the songs come one after the other…was it only me who felt so…I felt that the songs were packed and played one behind the other…anyways, never mind. “Kabhi Kabhi Aditi….” was shot beautifully…with Aditi not looking at her best (when compared to rest of the movie), maybe cos this song was supposed to cheer her up…anyways, post this song she was mirror-cracking! 😀
From my female friend’s point of view, Imraan was cute (nah…cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuttttteeeeeeee is what she had said!!)…danced as a college student should…behaved decent…and at the end (if not throughout the movie) was brave enough to defend the love of his life. I had to talk about Imraam from her views, as I was busy admiring Aditi!! Sigh!
I loved the roles of Rathna Pathak Shah (Jai’s mom) and Naseeruddin Shah (Jai’s deceased dad….he’s got a cameo role…same costume, and talks out of photo frame…just like the late Priya Tendulkar did in the Zee TV series “Hum Paanch”)!!! Rathna was mindblowing and she essayed her role of a cautious mom and a social activist (I think!!) perfectly to the brim. 😀
Genelia and Imraan were cool in their respective roles…Pratiek Babbar who plays Amit too has done justice to his role as a nerdy brother of Aditi!! Sohail and Arbaaz Khan play cameo’s which seemed to be forced into the movie just to make it more comical…we need to tickle ourselves to feel so though!! 😉
I liked the nicknames of Ratz (for Jai) and Meow (for Aditi)…Meow reminded me of someone I refer to by that name!! 😉
Manjari has portrayed her part as Meghana pretty well!! At one point in the movie, she seemed to be like the main heroine, as she was in every other scene…she also gets to do the ultimate sacrifice in the end by letting go of Jai….that made me feel she was infact the lead heroine…but I guess, the one who gets to take the cake, gets to lick the cream!! 😀
The set of friends Aditi and Jai had were simply awesome…I loved Jignes(h) the best among all…he himself inviting his friends for his surprise birthday party was hilarious…so was his gujju accented Hindi!! 😀
The other seriously hilarious part is when their friend, whom they call Rondhu (who had hearts for Aditi) sees Aditi and Jai together and ends up at the bar asking for coca-cola…and that too “on the rocks” for the first gulp (peg) and then a stronger second peg!! And the bartendar says “Sambhalo apne aap ko” or something, or did I just imagine it? Anyways, we laughed like crazy over it!! 😉
The storyline I felt was cliched…could remember Kuch Kuch Hota Hey…but it were the songs and the awesome music by AR Rahman, that kept the mood upbeat throughout the movie…the song “Jaane tu mera kya hey…” sung by Sukhwinder is not a part of the movie and was thoroughly missed!! 😦
Overall, a pleasant experience to watch with either family or friends…its simply awesome…I don’t wanna spoil the fun by rating the movie…Just wanna say, I am really obsessed by Aditi just as much or actually a little more than my female friends were smitten by Imraan!! 😛
Go watch it if you still haven’t… 😀

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Me! Myself! Moi!

Though unaware, I'm usually up to something. I'm an ex-introvert who talks more than he write and writes more than he's capable of. I try to make light of everything, for I believe that I'm stuck in a dark tunnel.
All said and done, I named this blog space as 'All in the Mind...', for the very lack of it.